AUBURN — Operators of the Twin Cities’ bus service will pursue a 20 percent fare hike.

“We know that revenues are very important at this time, so it’s something we can really look at,” Phil Nadeau, chairman of the Lewiston Auburn Transit Committee, said. “Basically, we have consensus on the committee itself to begin working through the process and looking at a fare box increase.”

Nadeau said the LATC board discussed the rate hike informally at their meeting Thursday afternoon and agreed to hold public hearings to discuss it.

The LATC currently charges a normal rate of $1.25 for each ride, but offers significant discounts and free daily shuttles downtown and around the Auburn Mall. Because of those discounts, Citylink makes about 53 cents for each rider.

The proposed increase would raise regular fares to $1.50, with corresponding 20 percent increases for all of the passes and fare discounts.

That would increase fare box revenue by about $17,000, Nadeau said.

“This at least begins to address some of the concerns among city councilors in terms of increasing costs,” Nadeau said. He said members of the committee were expected to present the idea to the Lewiston and Auburn city councils at their separate budget discussions Thursday night.

The LATC has not raised the price of bus fares since the 2006-07 season. That increase resulted in a 7 percent drop in ridership.

“We have no way of knowing what increasing fares will do, other than looking at the past,” Nadeau said. “We know these are different times — 2006 didn’t have the volatility of fuel prices we do now — but we can still assume some drop off in ridership based on that increase.”

The LATC is predicting record ridership of about 270,000 riders for the coming year, based on success of last year’s schedule and Saturday service. Nadeau estimates the higher fares would reduce projected ridership to about 251,000. That would still be a modest increase over the 2009-10 ridership numbers.

staylor@sunjournal.com